Terence Rattigan (1911–1977)

An interesting set of what is actually two plays, though it reads more like two acts of one play, connected only by the same characters and setting. The stories could be told independently, and no one would ever know they were connected. I found both of them somewhat disturbing, but particularly the second. They are steeped in the ideas and morals of their time, and that means that the characters fuss about things no one would likely notice today. The dialogue is often quotidian, but I think show more that is the direct intention of the author. He intends this to be about people in their usual mode of interaction, thrown into a new situation. I didn't find the stories particularly compelling, but perhaps onstage they would play better than they read. The edition included some alternate scenes for the second act, which were never performed because they were too...problematic...for the time, I suppose. I must say, I preferred the alternate scenes. The original act as written was difficult to deal with because it depicted actions that were then and remain criminal, and violated the rights of various women, and we are expected to forgive the act. In the alternate scenes, the ones where the actions were too troubling for audiences, most of us would probably say, so what? But at the time this play came out, those were criminal actions that got much more serious penalty than the much more disturbing (to modern minds, especially women) scenes that were deemed more acceptable for stage. So this was an interesting exercise in trying to view a work through the eyes of its own time. At the very least, it made me glad I live in this time, warts and all. show less

This play is based on the real-life story of Alma Rattenbury, on trial for murdering her husband in concert with her lover, who (shock horror!) was 20 years younger than she was. The play shifts between the circumstances leading up to the murder, the trial, and the family dynamics of the jury forewoman, Edith Davenport.

I found the play a bit messy when shifting between these timelines, and I’m not sure how much the staging would have helped, especially if the sitting-room setting is show more supposed to be both the Davenports’ living room and the Rattenburys’. This play is almost better conceptually as a TV adaptation, where the shifts in time and place can be much more clearly defined. (The existence of the TV adaptation, featuring a young David Morrissey as the lover, Stoner in real life but Wood in the play, is the reason I read this play in the first place.)

This was Rattigan’s last play, and it kind of shows, with the messy chronology and the somewhat samey-sounding characters. I ended up looking up the original case and found the circumstances more interesting than the play. The murder victim, Francis Rattenbury, practised architecture in Canada and designed the British Columbia provincial legislature, as well as the Empress Hotel in Victoria and the former provincial courthouse, which is now home to the Vancouver Art Gallery. And it was his affair with Alma, who later became the wife who murdered him, that caused a scandal in the Canadian society he lived in, stopping the flow of work and precipitating his return to England.

If you are at all interested in this play, hunt down the TV adaptation. Don’t bother reading it. show less

I read this first, on my own, not as an assignment, as a teenager. I think it was an old battered pupils edition of the play, from my parents bookshelves. Hard work, but an intriguing story even back then (I must have been 13 or 14).
I find that I did not understand very much back then. Back then, for me the story was about the boy, about the fight to find justice for him. Re-reading it now, I see that it is about everyone *but* the boy. There is the parents, specifically the father, putting show more everything (money, reputation, health) into the task of getting their boy exonerated from the accusation of being a thief. The siblings suffer for this, the older brother loses his place at Oxford because the parents cannot pay for it anymore, the older sister loses her fiancé due to the publicity. Even the barrister whose help they enlisted, gets himself deeply involved in a tangle of political mudfights, legal battles and last but not least his unacknowledged attraction to a lady. There is a number of subplots going on, and the end does not only see the boy exonerated but nicely ties a few of these subplots as well. There is an open ending that is just lovely and unexpected --or not, if you have been reading attentively!
There is a 1999 film version of this play by David Mamet, which is worth watching. show less

Based on his own experiences in the RAF, this play, written in 1941 and first staged in 1942. Set in a hotel near an RAF Bomber Command airbase during the Second World War, the story involves a love triangle between a pilot, his actress wife and a famous film star. It was his first successful serious drama and first commercial success since the mid-1930s. The title of the play refers to the flares that were used to light runways to allow planes to take off and land but the flare paths were show more also used by the Germans to target the RAF planes.
The play portrays the impact on three couples of the demands on the fliers who leave, perhaps never to return, and their wives and lovers who wait for their return. Of the three couples, one is a young sergeant whose working wife is visiting for the weekend. Another is a Polish emigre Count who has married a British bar maid so that he may join the fight against the Germans. And the third couple is a young Lieutenant who is facing his own demons and is unsure if he is a worthy mate for his wife, one Patricia Graham, an actress from London, who has something of her own to tell her husband Teddy, the bomber pilot. The situation is complicated when Peter Kyle, a Hollywood film star, arrives at the hotel, and Teddy is sent out on a night raid over Germany. Patricia is torn between a rekindled old flame and loyalty to the husband who relies on her for support. The tension mounts as the the night moves into morning and the fliers begin their return. Rattigan effectively ratchets the emotional tensions and the suspense upward until the climax. show less